People talk about incentivizing sales reps, gamifying experiences, incentivizing your channel… How have you seen incentives put to use in the channel?

There are a lot of buzz words out there. It’s tough to know what’s the appropriate strategy when it comes to engaging, not with just your channel partner, right? And I think of the channel partner at the organizational level. And then there’s the channel sales person, the person, the human that works for the partner organization, or the partner sales engineer, or customer support.

When most people think of incentives, they think of the reward. And don’t get me wrong, the reward is so critical. If you don’t have the right reward, and the reward isn’t motivating, your strategy is dead on arrival. And more than ever, the reward options are more compelling to your target audience. We’re seeing huge trends towards experiences, and sporting events…not just merchandise. You can actually pick out the event, the theater, the summer concert. And don’t stop there but pick the date, the venue, the seat. And what about booking a hotel, and a shuttle to the show. All this online in the incentive program, real time. And it’s really, really cool. But let’s be honest, compelling rewards are the baseline, that’s just the beginning. And I think what’s most exciting that we’re seeing at HMI is how channel incentives are solving big problems… big challenges in the channel. Most people don’t think of incentives like solving challenges.

80% of revenue comes from 20% of partners, or even more. A lot of that goes back to recruitment, and then how you’re engaging, how you’re maintaining mindshare. What are your thoughts on this principle?

There are people out there that just accept it, and the statistics would be tough to argue that. HMI specifically is uniquely positioned to help with this dilemma. It’s way easier to move up an existing customer, a partner, than it is to find and train a new one. Recruitment and finding new partners always needs to be part of your plan. But, if we could just take a look at that middle 60%, and focus on them. There’s a great opportunity to move them up to that next level. And the challenge has between with performance incentives and channel incentives is a lot of companies roll out these blanket reward programs. And when you do that, you have the same 20% hitting those goals and enjoying the rewards, or the president’s club trip to Hawaii.

Taking a page out of Allbound’s book here, today, it’s all about personalizing it, and customizing it to each individual person. The technology wasn’t there five years ago. But today, each person that logs in to an HMI system for example, has a completely unique experience. They see their unique goal or threshold, or unique promotion that’s available to them because they sell a certain product or in a certain region, or there’s unique rewards available to them. All depending on their demographics or how we’ve segmented the customer/partner database. Those goals are based on how much they sold from the previous quarter, or how much they sold from the previous year. It’s not this, “You have to sell this for us to get our attention,” it’s, “If you show us progress, we’re gonna invest back in you.” And we call this intimacy at scale.

Where do you see the future of partner programs going?

The strategy used to be “build it and they will come”. And that included all these resources. And they would build these things and put these libraries in place. And back in the day when there was only a handful of vendors doing that, they actually had a little bit of success. They would actually get their partners to come and use these resources. But today, there is just so much noise. Everybody has these resources that they expect their channel partners to come to and access and use. And it’s not happening, and it’s not gonna happen in the future. It’s not, “build it and they will come”.

What we’re seeing now is…and where I see the future is, it’s not getting all these assets and resources. It’s how can you integrate with your partner? How can you integrate? And you’ve always tried to integrate your product into theirs. You’ve got to keep doing that. You’ve got to integrate your marketing into theirs. And you’ve got to keep doing it better. But the real advance is gonna be, how can you integrate with the buying experience? And can you help your partners be more effective out there selling, and help them through the journey? We don’t have all the answers there but it’s starting to crystallize. Again, companies like Allbound are doing things in ways that people had never seen before or considered just a few years ago. And those are areas of advancement that are starting to show us the future of channel marketing programs. On the HMI side, five years ago we weren’t having intimacy at scale, and customizing each participant’s experience in the channel incentive program. Today we are. There’s a long way to go, but that’s where it’s heading. Those are gonna be the vendors that win. The ones that can integrate into the buying experience.

To learn more about channel partner incentive programs, intimacy at scale, engaging the middle 60% of your partners, and more tune in to episode 40 of The Allbound Podcast.

Enjoy the what you’re reading? Take a minute to let everyone else know how much you love the Allbound Podcast and leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks!

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These five simple yet shocking tips will help to increase loyalty and better engage your channel partners.

1.) Don’t ask them what they want… or need! By being the manufacturer or distributor you have the insight and best practices of your most successful partners. Create a leadership forum (online & offline) where you can have your partners collaborate and learn from your unique ecosystem.

2.) Reward them more for non-revenue activities. This may not make much sense on the surface, but it works. Remember those best practices that work from the first point? If you know that the partners with the most training sell more and are less maintenance, reward everyone in the channel for training completions. If X number of deal registrations or demos equal an increase of Y in sales, reward for registration or demo goal achievement. Almost all of my clients’ Reward Programs include STTS (Steps to the Sale) components.

3.) Share their competitive advantages with their peers. In certain cases, this is not always appropriate, but hear me out… Instead of just giving an award at the partner conference for most revenue, announce that “this partner also has the most certified engineers of any other VAR” or “this partner has engaged our sales team for demonstration more than any other partner.” Not only will they appreciate the honor, they will also get other Channel Partners thinking about the ways they can be better leaders. Pat these standouts on the back by putting them on a pedestal.

4.) Don’t set goals for your partners…. let them set their own. In your next meeting with you partner, don’t tell them their new goals for the quarter or year. Tell them why you value them and why and how you plan to help them grow THEIR business. Once you do, let them set the goal… chances are it is much more ambitious goal than you would have suggested…. and now they own it.

5.) Tell them to take a few days off. When your channel partners have achieved their goal (which they determined), take them and their spouse on a President’s Club or Group Trip (no, conferences don’t count!). You asked them to achieve a goal and they worked on it all year, so put your money where your mouth is and reward them for a job well done. No increased discounts, rebates, and more MDF don’t count. Those are all things in your business partner contract…. be human.

High-quality Group Incentive Trips can range from $2000-$5000 per person, but they couldn’t be a better use of funds. And if your channel partners hit the high goals they set, the extra revenue from the higher sales will more than pay for the trip. Think about enjoying a mai tai with your best partners and see how appreciative they will be while mingling with your upper management and executives. Nothing creates more loyalty than recognition and appreciation than through an incentive trip.

As you know, I often join Channel Sales in the field to get a better feel for our channel partners’ business and challenges. Last week I accompanied one of our Channel Salespeople on a call with a prospective channel partner. I heard something disturbing when the Sales Executive was asked by the partner’s leadership about specific trends in the market and how it was affecting other channel partners? This person, who will remain nameless, responded, “I’m not sure, I’m just a salesperson”.

Being in Channel Sales, do you have what it takes to be a Trusted Advisor to our Channel Partners?

In today’s rapidly changing market, if you are going to sell successfully through & with our channel partners, you mustn’t be “just a salesperson,” or “just a vendor.” You need to be someone with the 1.) business acumen and 2.) situational knowledge that is positioned to help our partner grow their business while also growing ours.

What sort of business acumen do you possess? As a Channel Salesperson, you have a unique vantage point and access to the broader sales channel. Your knowledge of the industry should cater to both the micro and the macro elements of business. This means mastering the language of bothour business (i.e. the manufacturer) and the language that is unique to our channel partner’s business. Do you understand the unique business of our business partner? Obviously, their goal will not be just to sell more of our products–after all, their loyalties lie first with their shareholders and employees. However, if we can align our goals with those of our partners, then be deliberate in the achievement of their goals, it will result in the selling of our products. In other words, we want to be a (big) part of their overall solution and offering. Thus, if we can understand our channel partner’s goals, we can better position our products and services to help them achieve those goals.

How much situational knowledge do you possess? To sell effectively, you need more than just experience. You need to know which choices are available to your channel partner and the end customer, including their products options to buy, which services are available, etc. Even if we are the industry leader, our channel partners have choices. As our partner’s trusted advisor, you need to be an expert not just with our products, but with your partner’s overall solution as well, and you need to know which options are available to their end customer. There should never be information parity between you, our channel partner, and the end-customer. Obviously, you are expected to be the expert when it comes to your products; but in order to be true Trusted Advisor to our partner and their end-user, you also need to know all of the choices that are unique to them.

As our Channel Salesperson, what are you going to do this week to develop your business acumen? Can you apply your situation knowledge & empathy to our partners’ and end-customers’ situation?

About the Author: Travis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network, and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a channel engagement and incentive company focused on Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their channel incentive strategies.

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When it comes to go-to-market strategies, sales organizations suffer from “the grass is always greener” syndrome. Organizations that go-to-market ‘direct’ to the end-user want to go-to-market through a ‘partner’ channel. And ‘partner’ channel organizations are always envious of the ‘direct’ sales model.

Recently a CEO approached me after a “Move the Channel” sessions. After the presentation, she wanted to know how to acquire a partner channel. They dominated a couple verticals, but they were a distant 3rd and 4th in the biggest industries and therefore a partners channel in those industries could come in handy. My response is always the same, “don’t bother”!

Of course, that only sparked more interest and curiosity. So I explained it simply, it’s not in a ‘direct’ channel organization’s culture to be successful with ‘partner’ channel. Noticing that she felt insulted by this, I tried comforting her by explaining this doesn’t make them bad.

And then I put into less offensive terms. I asked her if she could, “give me one example or case study of a ‘direct’ organization that has been successful at finding, onboarding, and … oh yeah successful selling through a ‘partner’ channel?”

The conversation made me think of the late Peter Drucker’s infamous quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. On the surface, we might think he’s suggesting that a company should focus on changing their culture before implementing a new strategy. But after more research and considering the context of the statement, he isn’t suggesting changing culture at all. In fact, Peter also said, “Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got”.

Not many success stories exist about ‘direct’ sales organization acquiring and growing the business through a newly seized ‘partner channel’. There are some more stories of organic success, but those take time. And CEOs don’t want to consider strategies that take time. This is a Transformation which is by definition very difficult.

You need two things to acquire a profitable ‘partner’ channel:

1.) Partner Culture: The mindset that our partner is our customer… how do our products and support help our partners be more successful? This is very different than thinking the only customer you need to satisfy is the end-user.

2.) Trust: Channel partners are instinctively untrusting and suspicious. And for good reason! If you are a known ‘direct’ organization, the apprehension for the prospective partner is even deeper.

Conclusion: Culture is slow to change and makes transformation difficult. And Trust is earned over time. If you acknowledge these facts, you might be successful at building partner channel.

About the Author: Travis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a channel engagement and incentive company focused on Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their channel incentive strategies.

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Question: Does it make sense to invite your Channel’s heavy-hitters (Points of Influence) to an enablement weekend in the Caribbean?

Answer: Most likely, Yes.

When you boil it, if you want to move the channel it comes down to winning mindshare. That’s the channel’s age-old challenge! But for years we’ve been over complicating it. In the 80’s, we thought the key was educating partners with really smart content. In the 90’s, it was all about providing them with tools that made it easier for them to sell our stuff. In the 2000’s, it was a race to the bottom and we dropped our pricing pants. Today we see the “Field of Dreams” syndrome… “If we build it (a Partner Portal), they will come.”

Unfortunately, in order for people to visit your portal, you need mindshare first.

Keep it simple. Simply run a 3-month contest where your most engaged Partner Salespeople earn an “Enablement Weekend with a View”. (with the right partner this is easier than you think)

At HMI, we do this every year. We call it our Channel Incentive Thought-Leadership Forum. These forums are wildly productive and just a lil wild. Check it out:

To see more of the inner workings & enablement sessions of the Leadership Forum Click Here.

Your participants leave enabled with an affinity for your brand. How do they become your brand evangelist? No, it’s not because they had a great time at a great resort (although that doesn’t hurt). It’s because they had a chance to meet your leadership and most importantly mingle and learn from their peers at other like organizations. They love your brand because you invested in them… not their company…. in them! Now that’s mindshare!

About the Author: Travis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a channel engagement and incentive company focused on Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their channel incentive strategies.

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Many of you know, that in addition to being Channel Engagement Innovator at HMI, I’m a past President of Mid-Day Toastmasters. Toastmasters is the best networking and professional development organization I’ve ever experienced. A couple of weeks ago, I attended Columbus OH’s Mid-Day Toastmasters Club 50th Anniversary and Holiday Celebration. I credit the Mid-Day Club and the people involved with it for much of my advancement in life and for helping me to see the world in a different way. Just as important as the communication and leadership tracks are the people and ideas to which I’ve been exposed. Surely Move the Channel or TribeVest wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the Toastmasters platform and Mid-Day mentors and peers like Tracy Austin, Anthony Iannarino, Tommy Costantiello, Mike Rudd, Mike Brickey, Robin Starr, Wayne Harer—and the list goes on and on. Basically, there is nothing quite like the right Toastmasters club.

One of the mentors I mentioned above is Tommy C. Tommy is a highly-respected financial advisor at Consus Wealth Management Group … so it probably comes as no surprise that he also loves to compete at just about everything—including Toastmaster speeches! He’s one of those guys who makes a decision and then sets his mind firmly to it. For example, Tommy had never run more than five miles at a time and didn’t even know how to swim when he made it his goal to compete in Hawaii’s Ironman World Championship. Well, fast-forward 6 years later and Tommy has successfully completed 14 Ironman Finishes, 2015 Ironman All World Athlete, and Ironman World Championship Finisher. In one year he ran a 50K, 50 miler, 100K, and 100-mile ultra-marathon.

When I first joined the Toastmaster’s club, Tommy agreed to be my mentor and was a big influence on my professional and personal career. Seeing Tommy at the Mid-Day toastmaster’s 50-year anniversary was a chance to show my gratitude and to share my exciting initiatives that are ongoing at the moment with him (many of which he’s influenced). But when I finally ran into him at the party he flipped the script! He thanked me for a note that I’d written, and at first, I have to admit, I didn’t remember which note he was talking about. (Believe it or not, I do make a daily habit of writing notes of gratitude to people who have influenced me over the years).

But I responded by telling Tommy that I felt it was important for him to know the impact he’s had on me, and how he’s continued to inspire me over the years. He kindly replied by saying I do the same for him, and then he told me something that shocked me.

Apparently, the note that he was referring to, the one that I sent him a couple of years ago, now sits in his trophy case with other prized items representing his hard work and accomplishments. At first, I thought he was joking, because it hardly seems appropriate that a note that took me 10 minutes to write and less than a dollar to send would be sharing a spot with a trophy that required thousands of hours of training and sacrifice, years of extreme dieting, and ultimately a grueling 15-hour endurance test through rugged mountains. But Tommy assured me that it was there, and that note was a reminder that the time he invested in me as a mentee was as valuable as the time he’d invested in his many other accomplishments.

It’s always a great feeling when people let me know how much they appreciate my notes. But this Trophy case story, I thought might motivate others to take the time to write a note to those who have impacted you.

When was the last time you wrote a note to someone who’s impacted your life in a positive way? Does your channel partner deserve a note (a hand-written) of gratitude? Give it a try—you might be surprised at the response.

Oh, and if you’re thinking about checking out a Toastmasters Club in your town, I’d be happy to share my experiences and insight with you. Feel free to give me a call.

About the Author: Travis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Move the Channel, a worldwide network and community of channel marketing & sales Chiefs and channel thought leaders. He also is a leader at HMI Performance Incentives, a channel engagement, and incentive company focused on Technology Channel Incentive Strategies. Travis helps some of the most respected companies in the world design, implement, and manage their domestic and global channel incentive programs.

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I know as channel professionals we feel like we don’t hear the phrase “thank you” enough from our partners. So when we do receive gratitude for our efforts, it’s important to respond in a way that really strengthens our partnership.

A couple of year’s ago I read a wonderful and very appropriate post from my friend at influencePEOPLE. Brian Ahearn is a Cialdini Method Certified Trainer and, through his blog, trainings, and workshops, he helps people influence others. If you want to hear your clients, friends, and family say “yes” more often, you should definitely subscribe to his blog.

In the words of Ahearn, people need to “strike each of these responses from their vocabulary!”

I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to engaging with your channel partners, it’s important to take advantage of any and every opportunity that’s available. Here are some suggestions for how to respond next time your channel partner offers their appreciation to you:

“You’re one of our most important channel partners, so I was happy to do this for you.”

“That’s what long-term partners do for one another. Thank you for trusting us.”

“That’s part of the great service you can expect when you deal with us. We appreciate you, your business, and our continued partnership.”

“It would have killed an ordinary person but I was glad to risk it for you.” (Some people will appreciate the humor)

“That’s part of the great service you can expect when you deal with me.”

“I was happy to do it. I appreciate you (and your business).”

During this holiday season, it is so important to count our blessings and give thanks. But equally as significant is how you respond to those that take the time to say “thank you” to you. Whether you are around the dinner table or the boardroom table, don’t miss a wonderful opportunity to deepen your relationships with those around you.

A couple of year’s ago I wrote a super bowl-edition blog entitled “Give Your Partners Your Playbook.” Since that time, I’ve changed my stance on this topic. Sure, you can call me a flip-flopper, but the fact is that advances in technology have changed the landscape of channel engagement.

Consider this: depending on their formations, personnel, and different variations of each play, the average NFL offense can have upwards of 500 plays in their playbook. Now, this isn’t an insurmountable number, and players can certainly master each of these plays, but it takes lots of mental preparedness and studying in order to become an effective offensive player.

If it’s difficult for an employee that gets paid millions of dollars to learn a playbook, think about your partner’s salespeople who have multiple playbooks to consider. Your playbook today is most likely your partner portal. Yep, just about every case study, sales tool, and resources one would ever need is in your partner portal. It’s good that your partner salespeople and sales engineers have access to the playbook, but don’t expect them to know it or even be able to navigate it.

Don’t give them the playbook, give them the “game plan.” By only giving them the overarching game plan, the likelihood of them actually absorbing the “plays” and strategy increase ten-fold.

Over the last 5 years, the industry channel organizations has been spending time, money, and resources on answering the question, “How can we be more efficient with our communication and become easier to work with?” As an industry, we’ve been successful with implementing Partner Portals, Learning Management Systems, Partner Relationship Management Systems, etc. These have been positive, even necessary steps for industry growth. But now, with the foundation of all these past investments in place, we need to transition from simply giving our partner sales and sales engineers “access” to these resources, to actually leveraging these systems and enabling these people so that they become more comfortable, compliant, and successful in growing their businesses while selling our products.

This can be achieved by shining a spotlight on the five important channel behaviors that can transform into eventual sales. This spotlight is your channel engagement platform. A channel engagement portal blankets over all your channel resources and makes it easy for your partner’s people to identify the top 5 key plays (behaviors) that lead to sales. Those plays might include: certification trainings, viewing a new product launch video, downloading a new case study, reading a recent favorable Gartner report, setting a meeting with the regional business development manager, a new account introduction, or whatever else we know continues to move the sticks for fresh set of down.

“But Travis, can these things/behaviors be tracked and measured?” Absolutely! And we if they are “good” and should be measured, then they also need to be rewarded with incentives.

So don’t overload your Partners with 500 different plays to choose from—give them your five best that can be run utilized successfully again and again and again.

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

Last night my 8-year-old son participated in the Cleveland Cavaliers Academy clinic. At the end of the clinic, the kids got to ask the Cavs’ players and coaches questions. The best question? “Where’s LeBron?”!

Fun was had by all and great job by my long time family friend, Seth Roberts, and the team pulling off a great event.

Being around the team brought me back to June, when my Cleveland Cavaliers overcame a 3-1 deficit to beat the best regular season team in NBA history, ultimately winning their first World Championship in dramatic fashion. To all those who witnessed these games, it was obvious that the coaches and players’ lifetime of hard work, dedication, determination all contributed to their victory in the 2016 NBA Finals. If ever there was a team that deserved to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy and receive championship rings, it was this team. But what was less visible to those watching were the incredible efforts of the people behind the scenes.

Before the regular season, the Cavs organization came up with a slogan for the team and the city that stood behind it: “All in.” Now, I’d bet that most of us sports fans have participated in a neighborhood Texas Hold-Em game amongst friends, so we all know that moment. You know, the moment that’s made the game so popular, the point where you decide that your best chance to win is, well, right now. Wait too long, and you might lose your momentum—and your advantage. So instead, being confident in your hand, you look at the opponent across the table from you and you say, “I’m all in.” At that point, whether you win or lose the game, you still feel fulfilled because you trusted yourself and went “all in” on your own terms.

But credit the Cavs owner, Dan Gilbert @cavsdan and his talented marketing staff, for not just a witty season slogan, he embraced it and made it the theme of his organization. I suspect this isn’t a new thing for his many many companies.

CLEVELAND, OH – JUNE 22: Majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers Dan Gilbert waves to the fans during the Cleveland Cavaliers 2016 championship victory parade and rally on June 22, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Dan Gilbert, the Cavs owner, recognized that in order to increase the odds and be the best team in the world, you needed more than a great team and great coaches. You needed to have your entire organization, and the entire business ecosystem that surrounds it, to go “all in” with you. That meant setting the bar high and demanding the most out of everyone involved. In a business setting, hitting that high goal might mean a bonus—if you’re lucky enough to be a valued employee who happens to have variable compensation role.

But what about the non-variable compensation employees? You know, the ones who, without their behind-the-scenes efforts, nothing would work. Or worse, what about your partners in your ecosystem, those who aren’t direct employees but are an important part of delivering and distributing your services every day? The partner or vendor employees include janitors, hot dog vendors, ushers, and even policemen!

To his credit, Dan Gilbert didn’t think the non-variable commissioned employees, nor his partner’s employees (like the hot dog and beer guys) there to “work” for the Cavs. In his heart, he believed they were critical to the success of the entire organization.

The genius—and the magic—of this mindset is that the entire ecosystem of people involved in the business believed it too. If they hadn’t before, they did now. During this one magical season, they all decided to go “all in” with the Cavs.

Next week, Dan is rewarding over 1000 full-time & part-time employees as well as many the Cavs’ business partners’ employees and contributors, with their very own championship rings. Some of those people include the ushers, janitors, hot dog vendors, and even policemen involved with the team. http://fortune.com/2016/09/29/cleveland-cavs-championship-rings/

Of course, I think LeBron James @KingJames is a true modern-day hero for what he does off the court http://lebronjamesfamilyfoundation.org/page/ljffyearreview. I also continue to hear stories like this one about Dan Gilbert and I am impressed with his judgment. I know that Dan and LeBron have had a somewhat rocky relationship over the years, but I can’t help but think winning championships might just be the baseline for what these two can accomplish together. . . .

The point here is that, in my opinion, no one has ever succeeded on his or her own, and if only we could see and appreciate all of the minor contributions that are made to our collective pursuits, the sky’s the limit for what we can achieve. And as much as anywhere, this holds true within the channel.

Do you look at each person in your distribution channels and ecosystem as critical to your success? Or are they partners just “doing their job”?

More importantly, do they feel like they are valued and have the impression that you view them as “critical?” If not, you probably aren’t maximizing your odds of winning the ‘ship.

Sure, you probably won’t go around distributing thousands of championship rings—but have you thought about an engagement program that rewards them for their time and energy commitment that they’ve made to your organization? Have they gone “all in” with your business by completing training modules, studying your products, learning to position them, engaging with your business development people, etc.? If so, maybe it’s time you rewarded them; because after all, if it can turn a basketball player into a King, imagine what it could do for your business. . . .

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

When I was a young boy my Dad taught my brothers and me that with the 5 “C’s” we could accomplish anything we set our minds to. These 5 “C’s” were courage, conviction, concentration, consistency, and moral conscious (but of course, when he saw a teaching moment he’d often work in other “C’s” from time to time too!)

The 5 C’s remind me of 5 principles that are key for manufacturers to accomplish what they’ve set their mind to.Many sales organizations struggle with going “all in” with a Channel go-to-market strategy. Instead, they often like to keep their options open and see if the direct model is going to be this quarter’s big winner. Unfortunately, that approach can only last so long—it rarely ever succeeds as a long-term solution. The fact is, if you are ever hoping to expect more from your channel partners, then they need to know that their partner is going to be “all in” with them.

Now, I don’t claim to be my Dad, but I’d like to take a page out of his playbook and offer my own set of principles for channel partner success. So, if you can try and LIVE these 5 principles, you and your partner will both know that one another is “all in” when it comes to your partnership. These 5 principles came to me in church when I learned about the book “Living the Five” by Jim and Jennifer Cowart.

You can’t reach your company’s full potential Alone

Growing partners challenge and change your organization (for the better). How can we help our partner grow?

Successful growing partners embrace sharing in a channel community (Create a healthy ecosystem)

Winning manufacturers serve their partners first, then there is potential for win-win

Being a Channel-Committed Company is more than just a business decision—it’s a lifestyle or company culture

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

1. unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand.

· Children have some strange ideas.

2. not previously visited, seen, or encountered; unfamiliar or alien.

When we hear or say something is “strange,” it usually comes with a negative connotation. After all, some of the synonyms for the word “strange” include “odd,” “peculiar,” “bizarre,” “unaccountable,” “weird,” and even “freakish.”

But didn’t our parents also tell us that what’s “strange” about us also happens to be what makes us great? Personally, I’m of the opinion that there’s a very fine line between what one might consider odd and what people might call a gift. The key, according to this school of thought, is to identify your uniqueness, embrace it—and leverage it. At this point of intersection, your flaw then becomes your inherent gift.

With that in mind, there are some other synonyms for the word “strange” that are more in line with this philosophy— words like “curious,” “uncanny,” “unexpected,” and “extraordinary.” I love Apple’s “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” 1997 marketing campaign and TV Ad.

Which group of words describes your organization? Very likely you have some “strange” people working for your company or within your channel. But isn’t it that strangeness that differentiates you from your competition? Steve Jobs of Apple always encouraged us to “Think Different.” In other words, embrace your organization’s strangeness and the people who make it unique. At the same time, don’t expect everyone outside of your organization to immediately recognize and understand this uniqueness as the gift that it is. These things take time.

And herein lies the opportunity to help your channel partners who might be considered “strange.” Like you and your organization, your channel partners most certainly possess some unique qualities and ideas. But you probably know better than most that their unique style and leadership aren’t necessarily negative things. Their “strangeness” is an essential part of who they are and probably one of the main reasons for their success. So, when behaviors among our partners that seem “strange,” we have two basic choices: we can try and help fix these behaviors (strangeness as a problem), OR we can celebrate it, embrace it, and help them leverage it (strangeness as a tool). If you show your channel partners that you truly appreciate what’s “strange” about them, you’ll gain a loyal partner for life—and a very productive one at that!

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

I want to show you the future of Channel Enablement and Incentives, but before I do, let’s take a look at its history and evolution with an example. In the early 2000s, when I was working for Hyland Software, we hosted quarterly Partner Sales Trainings that entailed two and a half days of classes and learning. VARs would come in from all over the country to attend these training sessions, to learn about Enterprise Content Management solutions and how to position them with their customers. At these events, they learned about the 32 different modules and the end-user outcomes of each feature. They even learned to configure a simple workflow process (which was a session I was proud to have taught!)

Obviously, all of this knowledge in itself had value; but perhaps even more important for attendees was the fact that the event provided them with the opportunity to experience our very unique “Hylander” culture which was a very disruptive outlook on the industry. After all, this was what attracted VARs to Hyland in the first place, and why they chose Hyland to be their core vendor to build their solutions around.

Throughout these sessions the VARs got to meet Hyland’s executive leadership, including AJ Hyland (legendary CEO), Bill Priemer (then VP Sales & Marketing, now CEO), Chris Hyland (CFO), Mark Davis (the closer), and, if you were lucky, at some point Miquel Zubizarreta (CTO & Co-Founder) would come walking in in all of his sweatpants glory. Finally, if the Founder Packy Hyland Jr. was off traveling the world at that time, not to worry—you’d most certainly meet his Dad, Packy Sr. What an awesome man and one who did a lot for me and my family. These leaders were Hyland Software, and the trainees who attended the events were able to learn from them in the classroom and then break bread with them in the evening. One of the nights during the event Packy Jr. would have the entire class and the rest of the Hyland company over to his house for a big backyard cookout. The trainees got to know not just the visionaries and sales and marketing teams but also got to become familiar with the people in development and the customer support team. Make no mistake about it, these backyard cookouts were a celebration party!

Now, think about how “Enabled” those VAR sales people must have felt when they left Cleveland, Ohio after that week. They weren’t just trained to sell and be competent about particular solutions, they were also exposed to an exciting company environment and inspired and motivated to be a part of an industry Hyland movement. In fact, people were so excited about becoming part of Hyland Software’s channel partner program that they’d pay (unheard of today) for their team to travel to Cleveland to participate in the event. Talk about creating buzz and generating loyalty!

The point is that Hyland Software didn’t take the shortcut to channel enablement; these quarterly events were proof-positive of their long-term outlook, demonstrating their desire and confidence in slowly bringing people into the Hyland fold. Of course, the rest is history: OnBase (Hyland’s flagship product) has become the biggest independent ECM solution in the world, and I would say this is due in no small part to their very successful channel enablement approach.

So, if the long-term approach has proven to be so successful, why would anyone want to take the shortcut? Well, for one thing, times have changed: in a society that often seeks instant gratification, companies have become less patient and VAR principals and salespeople have a hard time seeing value in spending 3 days out of the office (much less paying for it). The assumption is that training and enablement should be free and simply part of the partner program. To compound matters, vendors then look at this lack of commitment and become unwilling to invest in these types of onsite events.

Enter Learning Management Systems (LMS), where vendors can design, deploy, and measure product sales training and technical training modules. In other words, enablement has become nothing more than a box that needs to be checked. The crazy thing is that vendors are often spending more time and money coordinating their LMS system than it would cost them to organize an in-person training session (and, of course, a backyard party).

But the good news is, as a result of this current channel enablement environment, we are starting to see some cool innovative approaches and a moving away from the traditional LMS structure. In fact, while I was recently chatting with a client and friend of mine, Todd—who happens to be a leading innovator in how to reach and engage partners’ salespeople and sales engineers in the tech channel. LMS certifications and accreditations are still part of his channel training initiative, but where he sees the most results when he deploys a series of concise, multimodal elements that includes videos, quizzes, and other easy-to-digest content for a fraction of the cost. In the end, most of Todd’s incentive budget is directed towards producing enablement behaviors, user-friendly steps to the sale that are designed specifically to familiarize salespeople and sales engineers with the products their selling—Todd’s products.

The other great thing about this approach is it is absolutely a strategy for ongoing training and enablement. Not even the old Hyland on-premise training accounted for the ongoing education that is so crucial in the fast-moving high-tech space. The ease of deployment makes it easy to educate on new features or product launches.

And lastly, what about the engagement?

Now I know what you’re thinking—OK Travis, sure this is a step in the right direction. But we’re still long ways off from the good ole days of Packy Hyland Jr.’s backyard cookouts. True, but we are making progress there too. Can we ever simulate the backyard rapport? Not quite, but Todd is also incentivizing and providing a vehicle for channel salespeople and engineers to reach out and talk to key thought leaders in his company and industry. Yes, talk! Like over the phone or over a cup a coffee. These are people that can influence and better enable our partner’s salespeople if they got exposure to them. So in the reward platform, you can earn points for simply reaching out and “tap” or “set an appointment with “Jill.” Jill is your region’s business development manager for the Healthcare vertical you serve in. And Jill is armed with points that she’ll pay out just for being engaged. You’re meeting more of our people, and you are learning more about our solution but more importantly our culture. That’s money well invested in our book.

A mobile platform enables Partner’s salespeople to listen to a pre-sales podcast on the way to a prospect sales meeting or watch a short video in the parking lot or on the train prior to the meeting. The great thing is that the vendor can be alerted to when these pre-sales preparation sessions are taking place and follow up to see how to help.

But Travis these sound like things you are doing today or currently implementing—what does Enablement & Incentives look like in 5 years? It looks exactly like it did in the early 2000s! Except we don’t invite just anyone who will pay for enablement. We’ll only invite those that have earned enough “engagement credit” through our quick quizzes, watching our product launch videos, engaging with and meeting our people virtually, etc. What’s more it most likely won’t take place in Cleveland in the Founder’s backyard, but on a beach at a resort in the Caribbean (after all, they will have earned it!) Yes, in time people will finally come back around to how powerful a group destination setting can be, not just to learn about a product and how to sell it, but also to understand the culture and passion that is continually moving the industry. Welcome to the future of enablement.

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

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It has long been understood that if you’re going to increase customer loyalty among your end-users, then your organizations should be building their customer loyalty strategies around three basic drivers:

Product and service differential

Improving brand impact

Improving perceived product value

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Conversely, a study by our friends over at CEB has found that end-user loyalty is not being impacted primarily by these traditional drivers, but rather by one important element: the end-user’s buying experience or what they experience throughout the sale. When we talk about sales experience, it’s more than just delivering on your product and/or company promises; additionally, it includes providing insights and added value to the customer. In other words, a salesperson should be capable of doubling as a trusted advisor—certainly no easy task.
How do these findings impact channel organizations? Well, to be frank, this discovery makes many of us VERY uncomfortable. For the most part we are in full control of executing our strategy when it’s based around the traditional pillars of product and service differential, improving our brand impact and improving our perceived product value. In fact, we have very talented people in our marketing teams working on these areas every single day.

But when it comes to controlling our channel partners’ salespeople and sales engineers, to ensuring they are providing a good end-user buying experience for our product, our confidence is a lot less assured. Without having our hands physically in the mix, it can be hard for us to trust that due diligence is being exercised. So I can totally understand why this is prospect might be, shall we say, scary to certain Channel organizations. But I’m here to reassure you that the end-user’ buying experience is actually not out of our hands; in fact, we can exert some measure of control.

For starters, there’s been significant innovation in the area of how to better influence and train our channel partners’ sales people. Arming them with the right content at the right time is one area where we’ve seen a big impact, with companies like SproutLoud and Allbound leading the way. But perhaps the best levers to pull when it comes to this challenge may also be the most obvious: incentivizing them to do the things that make them stronger, more trusted advisors to your end-customer.

So, just because the territory is unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s impossible to navigate. Don’t you feel better now? I sure do.

As always, send me a note if you’d like to discuss or talk through some of these ideas together. And feel free to join in on this conversation at Move the Channel Group, your exclusive destination for Channel insights and innovation.

On Thursday I had a stimulating conversation with two fellow Channel Movers whom I had met in the Move the Channel Group. Jill & Sean head up the North American channel programs for an exciting company looking to aggressively grow through an enhanced partner strategy. She had reached out to me to see if I might serve as a sounding board for her regarding an important partner acquisition initiative her technology company was tackling. Of course, being the channel nerd that I am, I enthusiastically accepted her invite for this exciting brainstorming session.

During our talk, I came to realize that it’s a great time to be at Jill’s organization. They’ve established many best practices with their channel partner program that are opening up huge opportunities both in their current ecosystem and among new markets. Based on their recent increased activity among their current partners, they are looking to make new channel partner acquisition a measurable goal for the upcoming year, and currently have their sights set on attracting two distinct types of partners:

1) Traditional VAR Partner (more transactional)

2) Strategic Alliances, or what is referred to as a Strategic VAR or System Integrator (S/I).

Now, this organization has a high standard and requirement for both partner types. They are definitely looking for established and respected partners with the proper focus and infrastructure to deliver and represent their product. Wisely, they also require that their partners possess a minimum number of focused salespeople and sales engineers. In other words, competence and quality is a requisite for them.

So, during our brainstorming the first thing we did was articulate the differences in approach depending on the type of partner we were seeking. The typical strategy to acquire a strategic alliance partner is vastly different than the strategy to bring on a traditional channel VAR partner. One major distinction is the basic profile of the two:

Traditional VAR is a specialist in 1.) Their solution,

Strategic Alliance Partner is a specialist in 1.) Their solutionAND has 2.) a laser focus on their industry.

The result of this distinction is that while we can have MANY traditional VARs as partners, it only makes sense to have 1 or 2 strategic alliance partners per industry. As you can imagine, each group needs their own tweaked or configured channel program that appeals to their unique motivators, and thus the subsequent acquisition plans can vary greatly.

Let’s look at the VAR that specializes in their solution, not their industry. With these partners they are extremely competent at the products and all the parts associated solution. As a manufacture, our product(s) is usually an important part of their offering.

What does a strategic alliance partner look like? Well they have all the attributes of a traditional VAR but have four major elements that make them “strategic” in the partner world. First, they usually provide core enterprise solutions. Second, their core solution is mission critical to their customers’ operations. Third, 80%+ of their core product is owned and built in-house; in other words, they will sell their partners’ products, but only as an enhancement or add-on to their core. Lastly, they are usually laser-focused on a certain industry and therefor a leader in market share.

After identifying the distinct profiles of the two partner types, the question Jill, Sean, and I attempted to answer was: How can Jill’s & Sean’s organization cut through the noise and all the other competing options (other vendors trying to partner too), while avoiding the status quo?

The answer, we decided, was to understand what’s important to each partner type.

To start, we discussed how an organization like Jill & Sean’s could help the Traditional VAR achieve their objectives:

Profitable Business – A VAR usually has 3 buckets of product categories:Low-margin products – if your products falls in this bucket, you want get ANY interests

Sales and Marketing Integration – Does your channel program give them access to external people and tools that will make them successful and help leverage best practices?

Exclusive Club – Does your program make them feel special through with public recognition?

Clear goals and expectations – Does your partner onboarding help the new partner set obtainable and clear goals for the partnership to be considered a success?

Performance Incentives – If the above goals are achieved, is there something extra offered? Does your channel incentive program shine a light on “good behavior” and reward for Key Performance Indicators like training modules, account introductions, and deal registration at the partner’s sales and sales engineer level? We call your partner’s Sales and Sales Engineer the channel point of influence or POI.

As for the Strategic Alliance Partner, a partner might help them realize their goals through:

Profitable Business – Your product must fall in the high-margin bucket! This might be achieved by giving them the ability to own the installation, offering 1st line of support, and/or customization opportunities.

Reoccurring Business – Your product must fit their business model and be a good source of reoccurring revenue.

Stickiness – There might be an opportunity to partner even at a lower margin, but only if your product offers stickiness. In other words, does it enable them to become more integrated with their customer, thereby increasing “switching cost”.

Exclusive Club – In many cases a Strategic Alliance Partner might ask for the ability to “white label” your products. They certainly don’t want you working with their competition.

Clear goals and expectations – Does your partner onboarding program help the new partner set obtainable and clear goals for the partnership to be considered a success?

Performance Incentives – If the above goals are achieved, is there something extra offered? Your performance incentive platform must have the flexibility built in to target and reward the strategic alliance partner’s sales team (POI).

In retrospect, this was a timely conversation for me because I had spent my entire career working in the more traditional VAR channel, holding positions along the way with Manufacturers, Distributors, and Resellers. Most recently, I spent two years designing and implementing Strategic Alliances & Strategies for a world-class multibillion-dollar software company. It is great to be back at HMI Performance Incentives helping other tech channel organization enhance their channel programs through engagement and incentive strategies.

The Secret to change is to focus ALL of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. – Socrates

This is certainly true when it comes to transforming your alliance channel partnerships.

I’ve had many second half and “what’s next” planning sessions with alliance partners the last few weeks. The overlying theme from these meetings and
Executives seems to be “how do I Transform my channel.” This week alone I’ve met with two senior executives of industry-leading organizations who both suggested that transformation of their channel has become a priority. Although this is not a new idea, most of my channel initiatives in the previous years had involved trying to inspire MORE of an existing behavior within the channel. But transforming the channel is about “Building the New”. And it’s not just about a tweak here and a turn there. These executives want to fundamentally change how their channel partners and partner salespeople do two things: a) How their partners interact with their company, and b) How their partners Engage and sell to the end-user.

Part of the art of channel marketing is being able to influence key stakeholders in the channel without having the most powerful tool, the influence of direct compensation. Our channel stakeholders aren’t employees and therefore we don’t control our channel partner’s compensation plans. That being said, we do have significant control at the partner firm-level, and therefore we have the ability to adjust pricing discounts, offer rebates, and create MDF thresholds, all of which can encourage the partner to take their channel in a new transformative direction. If we want to change our business-as-usual approach to the channel, we must not be afraid to use every tool in our toolbox.

Another powerful instrument that can be used to transform your channel strategy is a wisely crafted channel incentive program. We’ve already talked about levers you have that can impact your partner at firm-level. But what about motivating the Point Of Influence (POI) of our sale? The POItypically identifies the partner’s sales people or Sales Engineers that interface with the end-user/end-buyer and own the relationship. The question is: How do we reach and engage these important channel influencers?

With a well-designed channel incentive program we can focus on building the new and accelerating the transformation of our channel. What are some transforming behaviors we can start to influence?

Building the New — There are many different degrees of training. There is everything from “Readiness” lessons and quizzes to full-blown Accreditation programs. Of course while any readiness initiative can be rolled out in weeks, a more significant accreditation program will usually take significant time & effort. Also, we know if Partner Salespeople (POI) invest their time in these training initiatives—whether its 15 minutes or 15 hours—this mindshare WILL ultimately translate into market share. Readiness initiatives should be hosted in your Channel incentive or engagement portals that target the POI audience.

A New Partnership — Transformation of the channel isn’t just about how our channel goes to market but how the channel partner works and interacts with us (the manufacture or distributor). This may be asking our channel partners and channel partner salespeople to change how they engage, where they engage, and what they engage at our organization. For example, for years manufactures and distributors have been investing in various partner resources including partner portals, partner marketing automation, etc. Although these “portals” are certainly still valuable resource centers, most organizations have started to realize that the “Do it yourself” approach makes it difficult to measure the effectiveness.

A New message for the End Buyer — As mentioned above, the DIY approaches haven’t worked as planned. There’s a concrete need to guide our channel partners especially at the POI to market and communicate the New…. products, services, and approach. When and how end-buyer communications are executive is often a trackable behavior and therefore one that can be incentivized in your channel engagement portal.

Selling to a New Stakeholder . . . the Decision Maker — It’s not only what we’re selling that is New: it’s who we’re selling to. Setting up meetings with the right people or the New decision makers is something else we can influence. With a decent CRM setting meetings with right people is a trackable behavior and therefore one that can be incentivized in your channel engagement portal.

These are just some examples of trackable and rewardable behaviors that can help you transform your channel. Remember, the Secret is to focus ALL of your energy on building the new, or what will transform your channel. A well-designed and properly managed channel incentive program can help you do that.

Have you been tasked with transforming your channel? Are you reaching the partner firm-level as well as at the Point of Influence (POI)?

As always, send me an emailwith questions, comments, or to set up a call.
Move the Channel,

Capturing the mindshare of your partners is one of the top challenges of selling through a distribution channel. Unless your products sell themselves, you need your channel partners’ sales people to be comfortable sharing your products’ benefits and advantages.

Here is the problem, unless your partners’ sales people have a baseline understanding of your products… they are NOT going to talk about them.

The quickest way to measure and accelerate your channel’s basic product knowledge is through quick quizzes.

By deploying a quick quiz, you measure a couple of key metrics. First, are they even clicking on your communications? Next, how do they score on the basic product quiz?

Quizzes have always been a source of knowledge measuring, but how do they improve product knowledge? HMI structures their quizzes with multiple choice questions followed up with answers and explanations. So it’s not about passing or failing, it’s about building a basic level of competency.

Most won’t designate the time required for completion of LMS courses unless mandated by their employer. But, quizzes are far from an enterprise LMS (learning Management System) and simple is what makes them so effective. Quizzes should only consist of 5-10 questions and only take 5 or so minutes. The fewer the question the more often you can give them. For example, 3 question quiz sent out every Tuesday morning.

What should we quiz? If it is sales people you wish to target, then you should be designing your quiz around the benefits and outcomes that your products produce. If its sales engineers, then it can be more about the product features and functions.

Last and VERY important is how do we entice these busy professionals to participate in the quiz? Companies like HMI Performance Incentives, can not only help in designing and deploying the quizzes to your channel but they can assist in development and delivery an incentive campaign built around the “quick quiz” initiative. Wrapping incentives around these quizzes not only maximizes initial participation, but motivates partners to coming back for more!

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I know many of us in the Move the Channel community tend to focus on Channel Partner Programs that deal in Partner-level or firm-level benefits. Now don’t get me wrong, these can certainly act as critical foundations for the formal partnership between you and your supply chain partners. BUT these types of programs don’t always differentiate you from your competitors, and they often don’t move the channel or grow market share as well as you might like. The exception here would be if your Channel Partners are made up of small companies, where the principal also happens to be the salesperson. You see this with many companies that sell through small contractors, dealers, or consultants. In these cases, the firm-level benefits are actually targeting the firm’s salesperson, which, I will argue, is really where you can strike with your program.

What are these important but industry standard firm-level benefits?

Quarterly & Annual Rebates

Manufacture Development Programs

Pricing Discounts Schedules

Registration & Demo Programs

Training Minimums and Requirements

I know these kinds of programs are not easy things to design, and they can certainly be a lot of work to manage and articulate. But at the end of the day,90% of your Partner/Firm-Level Programs are actually made of the same components. Sure your discount might be more exciting or your MDF program might be appreciated, but even if your program is superior to your competitor’s, it’s probably only a month or so away from being matched by the competition.

So where do we see real impact? How do we actually MOVE THE CHANNEL? The biggest impact and most measurable movement can be realized when you effectively target, engage, and incentivize performance at the Point of Impact (POI). Also known as the Point of Influence, the POI is the person in the channel that can best influence the sale—to YOUR END USER. Believe it or not, the POI is almost always your channel partner’s salesperson or sales engineer. It is the individual who interfaces with your end customers. Each Industry and every company has its own vernacular for this person, but we at Move the Channel have coined this strategic player the POI.

Behaviors you may want to impact at the POI

Increased Deal Registration

Training Completions

Individual Sales and Goals (Customized)

Target Prospect Engagements

Customer Introductions

POC or Evaluation Placements

You could even require these behaviors that are important in a build-your-own strategy discussed a couple of weeks ago by Move the Channel contributor Gary Morris.

When a program and performance incentive strategy is designed around the POI, you are engaging at the most valuable touch point in the channel—the Point of Influence. Programs that can engage and motivate at this level are much more difficult to duplicate, and thus they have a more profound impact on the sale and overall market share.

Make sure your Partner/Firm-Level benefits are top-notch, but also quickly turn your marketing genius and resource to the people in the channel that have the real influence you are looking for . . . the POI.

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Reid Garrett Hoffman (center), the founder of LinkedIn, applauds from the bell balcony after the opening bell during the company’s initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange.

On Friday, our significant LinkedIn group of Channel Marketing & Sales Professionals crossed over the important 4000 member mark. I’m awaiting a congratulations phone call of from one of my heroes, Reid Hoffman, the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of LinkedIn. Perhaps if he’s too busy, I’ll hear from LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Wiener?

Ok, I’m not going to hold my breath but I do anticipate meeting with both someday!

Today I want to talk about how we measure the success of our Group at Move the Channel Group. In contrast I will first share what you’ll see when you go to LinkedIn Groups’ “Today’s Highlights”: Yes, LinkedIn will spotlight the gargantuan Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Network Group and highlight their 222 new conversations today. They have over 217,000 members.

Impressive & impactful, or is it? Have you ever actually entered into a group like this? If not, STOP! Let me save you a head ache and share with you what’d likely see… 218- of-the-222 new conversations will have no commentsand no “likes”. In other words, few members are reading this mass dumping of conversations and certainly even fewer are engaged in real conversation.

Now, let’s look at Move the Channel Group which is nowhere on the “YOUR MOST ACTIVE GROUPS” board. I admit 4000 member is a relatively small group when you look at the rest of the LinkedIn Group universe. But how many Channel Pros are there? I’m not exactly sure. But thanks to Move the Channel now there are 4000+ of us connected in a way we’ve never been before.

Let’s face it, the most impressive number is not the 4000 active members. The real striking number is 8… as in it took 8 years for us to reach 4000! Move the Channel’s gradual growth came consistently and carefully by only accepting request-to-join from true channel marketing and sales professionals. At Move the Channel we value quality, not quantity.

The other area we are especially passionate about is our small in number yet very active & engaging conversations. We only have a few conversations going at any given time and maybe a dozen a week. Almost all of our conversations are thoughtful and relevant questions/content that is meaningful to the membership at large. The other thing we’ve noticed is Move the Channel’s conversations are actually authentic dialog. We like engagement and interaction between fellow members.

Move the Channel’s Secret Sauce:

Clear and simple rules…. And we inforce them.

Members… the best in the Channel. We focus on quality members, not quantity. Move the Channel Club is an exclusive club.

MTC Board of known Channel thought-leaders. Each Board member has a unique channel area of focus and provides executive level direction for the Group. You’ll see the Board members asking questions and providing thought-starters around their area of channel expertise.

Conversations that are meaningful, consistent, and relevant. In addition to our members’ contributions, our Board of Channel thought-leaders serves up the “MTC Convo” each week.

Most of our Conversation come in the form of questions. If we had all the answers, we would have never joined this group.

Transforming Channel Marketing & Sales across all Industries. We firmly believe that the conversations we have today are transforming Channel Marketing and Sales for tomorrow.

Here are some of our results and group statistics.

Thanks for being an integral part of Move the Channel. Please provide us your feedback and comments so we can continue our mission to be the best Group in the Channel.

As always, send me an emailwith questions, comments, or to set up a call.

Move the Channel,
Travis

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You’ve heard me speak fondly and share the great deal of loyalty, appreciation, and pride for my High School Basketball Coach, Coach Gray. Many of the lessons he imparted to us as juniors and seniors have stayed with me to this day, and it seems a bit strange now to think that in the course of my life, one of the most important and inspiring teachers I ever had was a “coach”. Through his vision & leadership, he was always able to get the most out of his players.

Coaching is a skill that is as required in business as much as it is in sports. For example, take channel marketing and sales leaders. Much of their efforts are spent designing, implementing, and marketing the perfect partner program. Discounts structures, rebate tiers, MDFs, CO-OPs, partner benefits, etc., are all foundations for any Channel Partner Program. Developing a great playbook is important, but without the right players and coach… its all for not.

I’ve recently been involved in a project where we (the manufacture) are introducing an enhanced solution to established and successful alliance partners. This new ‘enhanced’ offering has great potential to onboard a whole new segment of our partners’ customer base while introducing our partners to new customer associations altogether. Sounds like a no brainer right? Well it is, but it is easier said than done! We know that to launch a new initiative with your partners takes a skilled and deliberate communication to get all the players working together. I recommend a coach’s approach.

I learned the following simple approach from Tracy Austin. He is the best business coach I’ve ever worked with.

2.) Listen – No, I mean like REALLY listen! Use your intuition and business acumen to discover how your initiative will help them achieve theirs.

3.) Feedback – Let them know you were REALLY listening and summarize what you heard and understand. Then coach them on how your initiative will help them with their goals. Above all else, help them with their goals. If your goals don’t align with theirs, that’s OK. Remember bad news early is good news, better to know now than invest time, money, & people on an initiative that never had a chance.

4.) Action Plan – If you do find consensus, it’s time to put a plan on paper… but not just any plan… THEIR plan.

This takes time, energy, organization, and leadership—basically a coach’s approach. In the short-term, this can lead to increased mind share, market share, and sales. In the long-term, you will have a partner who is loyal and appreciative, and who takes pride in working with your championship-caliber organization. Just don’t expect them to call you “coach.”

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I hope your 2016 is off to wonderful start! In the spirit of the New Year, I often use this time to reflect on past successes and set my sights on new and challenging goals. Move the Channel is celebrating 8 successful years, but now it is time to zero in on how to take this incredible group of channel professionals to new heights. After 8 years of tremendous growth and community building, it is time to take steps forward for a new and improved Move the Channel Group.

Although the group mission and goals remain unwavering, upon looking around the site, you will notice an updated Group Summary, Rules, and even our Title. However, the most significant enhancement is the addition of a panel of channel experts which has been assembled to identify the most relevant channel industry topics. This panel will be driven by recognized Channel Thought-Leaders who are committed to their specific channel expertise including:

Gary, Gary, and I are the initial contributors to the expanding panel serving Move the Channel. Gary and Gary are also taking on an executive management role at Move the Channel Group. I want to thank Gary & Gary for the leadership and vision they have already brought to Move the Channel and will continue to bring.

We will post the week’s topic every Tuesday morning to drive dynamic conversations that reflect the interests, focus, and valuable trends of our group. Comment on the conversation! Start your own conversations too! This group is designed to engage and grow.

As we move forward with our new panel in action, we ask these action Items of you, our valued MTC Members:

1. Give us your FEEDBACK & SUGGESTIONS: If you are interested in the new discussion panel and/or have ideas on significant channel topics, please reach out to myself, Gary, or Gary. I’ve also started a conversation:

2. INTRODUCTION: I invite all of you to take this opportunity to introduce yourself to the group. Many of you have already done this, however, please take moment to re-introduce yourself. Just as our Group has grown and changed over the 8 years, I’m sure many of your roles and leadership positions have changed too! Thanks for taking just a minute to introduce yourself!